Spirits of Reprisal: How Lethal?

[Bren]

18 minutes ago, Storm Khan said:

I will write-up what I am planning. It is pretty direct. Why, btw, this enthusiasm for Lunes? Should I just lie? OK, OK, HERE's YOUR %^$&#$g LUNE! HAPPY NOW? 😏

Because Lunes add all sorts of crazy PC fun. 

If you don't want Lunes, how about a blood red, imp demon. Make it 1 meter tall and fat like a Buddha with a big grin...and six arms and fangs dripping with poison and a weird, giggling hyena laugh. Let it follow the character around for a while, sending disturbing nightmares and giggling in the shadows and dark places, disturbing the apostate's rest. Have it do this for a while with increasing frequency and effect. By the time it finally attacks - of course it swells up to 3x it's previous height - the character and any friends will likely be relieved to finally have something to fight.

[svensson]

3 hours ago, Storm Khan said:

I will write-up what I am planning. It is pretty direct. Why, btw, this enthusiasm for Lunes? Should I just lie? OK, OK, HERE's YOUR %^$&#$g LUNE! HAPPY NOW? 😏

No particular love for Lunes, other than they're appropriate for a Seven Mothers apostate. Kind of like having a whirlvish attack an Orlanthi backslider that way.

But no, it need not be an elemental at all. A simple ghost or spirit would suffice. Or anything else that works in the context of your campaign.

[davecake]

8 hours ago, Storm Khan said:

On one hand, there is the "We are all us" doctrine, the insistence that we are all connected at some fundamental level. Fighting, in turn, is self-brutalizing futility.

I suspect, however, that what "We are all us" really means is, Submit absolutely.

The Goddess and the Empire have very different concerns.

This is a major theme of the Hero Wars story from the Lunar point of view. 
The Emperor wishes to rule you, the Goddess wishes to liberate you. 

Ok, the Emperor wishes to rule you physically, the Goddess wishes to liberate you spiritually, and for both its a bit more complicated than that, and so maybe they are reconcilable - but there is always potential for conflict. 

Jar-Eel (an incarnation of the goddess, many say) is trying to serve both. But she is aware of the conflict, as is Great Sister (and of course the Red Emperor, but maybe because he is the cause of it, or at least so some say) and eventually Jar-Eel and Great Sister begin to do what is necessary to bring the Empire and the Goddess back into harmony. Starting with sacrificing the Emperor. Then the fun really starts. 
 

or at least, that’s what it looks like to the un-Illuminated hoi polloi who’ve never even been to the Moon. Probably all sorts of mysterious stuff going on up there. 
 

Butnto bring it back on topic - there are no Lunar spirits of retribution* because the goddess does not need them. The Empire, on the other hand, has plenty of spirits, and can use them for retribution if it wants. 

* ok, some few Lunar cults have spirits of retribution. Not everything is all about the goddess. Interestingly though, all three Lunar cults that I noted as having Spirits of Retribution, they are not Lunar spirits - they are the spirits of defeated enemies. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by davecake

[French Desperate WindChild]

8 hours ago, Storm Khan said:

The idea of no sprits of reprisal slams up hard against these atrocities; I plan to have spirits of reprisal for my Lunar Cults to make them as brutal as everyone else and then pile a thick layer of hypocrisy over that.

personaly, I consider the "no spirit of reprisal" as something absolutly more brutal than other cult reprisals:

when Orlanth/Magasta/Telmor/.... send you a little or big one to teach you the lesson and go back to the right way, the red moon and the mothers let you go to the wrong way and make your mistake. you may find your way, understant and go back to the goddess, or just become an outsider, no interest except feed the bat, the vampires or other chaotics friends.

you are no more part of the "WE", you are now the other, the lost, the nothing. It is more mental manipulation than physical retribution. it is a soul retribution somewhere. and your body will last few years when your soul will last... well depends if you meet the bat 😛

 

[Darius West]

On 1/28/2022 at 2:37 PM, Storm Khan said:

So, I have an initiate NPC that renounces her cult membership in The Seven Mothers.

I was thinking of having a small demon come after her; if the party takes her under their wing, it would be a decent encounter.

On the other hand, something I have read LONG ago is scratching away, suggesting that a spirit of reprisal shouldn't have claw at 50% with 2d6 damage: Too much.

Opinions are appreciated.

Because the Seven Mothers is an illuminated sect, they don't go in for spirits of retribution.  Instead the initiate remains permanently linked to the Lunar Cycle.

Now if you want to persecute a Lunar character, why go for some pathetic scratchy little critter they will kill with one encounter?  Send in a Tax Demon to audit them, starting with any backlog of undeclared treasure that should have been part of their 10% tithe.  A scratchy little nuisance is not memorable, but a tax audit is terrifying.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Darius West

[JRE]

Personally I think spirits of reprisal fill two functions. One is mechanical, as in the first versions of RQ the social aspects were not well developed, to keep players from joining cults just for training and some cool battle spells and then leaving as soon as they had the goodies they wanted. The cooler the goodies, usually the tougher the penalties, and Black Fang in RQ2 was a clear example. The second is to represent the magic that pervades all of Glorantha, so there are penalties that apply even if there are good reasons to leave a cult. It also give the GM tools to punish wayward cultists before they go fully apostate. 

In general I believe that in the new enlightened roleplaying, the social penalties will usually be worse than the magical, and they will apply even for the illuminati, so they do not get freebies. So you may well have champions of the cult challenging you (if they know you are beatable), you will lose your ransom money, and probably no friendly cult will take you in.

In the case of lunar cults, I wonder if their traditional status as enemy cults meant that they were cults you were intended to leave eventually, and join the plucky rebels... So no reprisal. Though it also fits with a culture of illuminati and cult mobility, with the lunar elite flitting from cult to cult as needed. To show them as munchkins that exploit the system, and the Lunar way allows them to do so...

[Storm Khan]

Believe it or not, I have decided on a Selene ambush as my party paddles upstream on the Lyksos. Boat rolls, anyone? 

[Ironwall]

5 hours ago, Storm Khan said:

Believe it or not, I have decided on a Selene ambush as my party paddles upstream on the Lyksos. Boat rolls, anyone? 

Do they have any water worshiper? If not this will probably be entertaining.

[Storm Khan]

9 minutes ago, Ironwall said:

Do they have any water worshiper? If not this will probably be entertaining.

I am encouraging Duck(s) and/or an Engizi Initiate(s). The PC's are pending, so we will see. I wonder what I should set as the move rate per MR for a canoe being paddled upriver by two people? I am thinking 6.

With no paddling, they drift backwards at a rate of 2.

I will be sure to brush up on those drowning rules . . . 🙃

 

[Storm Khan]

On 2/2/2022 at 1:53 AM, JRE said:

In the case of lunar cults, I wonder if their traditional status as enemy cults meant that they were cults you were intended to leave eventually, and join the plucky rebels... So no reprisal. Though it also fits with a culture of illuminati and cult mobility, with the lunar elite flitting from cult to cult as needed. To show them as munchkins that exploit the system, and the Lunar way allows them to do so...

Interesting thoughts. I changed the NPC's cult to Hon-eel's, since She has a history of human sacrifice and, in turn, is less likely to be free and easy with her former devotees.

[Geoff R Evil]

OK so Humakt spirits of reprisal are pretty heavy, Humakt himself shattering your sword.

One of my PCs wields 2 swords called father and grandfather, he had to sacrifice father as part of a heroquest which succeeded.

On the quest his group also discovered some Mostali outpost and some items.

The PC needed a new sword, and in pavis they had connections that hooked them up with a Dwarven trader of mostali goods.

The obvious thing to do, which they did do, was trade the mostali goods for mostali made items, including a new masterwork broadsword.

Now the problem:  The Humakt has a geas, Mistrust all Mostali.

The Humakt now has the new sword and calls it father. Mostali made. Traded for by a fellow PC, (the Humakt was in the room).

So the big question - has the geas been broken?  If so do all the Humakti's sword now shatter in his hands?

Or can I tone it down a bit, a warning shot across the bows - perhaps the mostali sword shatters at an inopportune time and the player gets th sense of divine presence and anger?  But going forward his other swords are fine...

[metcalph]

1 minute ago, Geoff R Evil said:

Now the problem:  The Humakt has a geas, Mistrust all Mostali.

The Humakt now has the new sword and calls it father. Mostali made. Traded for by a fellow PC, (the Humakt was in the room).

So the big question - has the geas been broken?  If so do all the Humakti's sword now shatter in his hands?

The geas is mistrust all mostali, not mistrust everything made by the moistali.  Thus he can whinge about the Dwarf overcharging for the sword and he would have fulfilled the geas.

[Ali the Helering]

Nonetheless I don't think he would use the sword. 

If he wasn't standing beside the forge as it was made, how could he trust the nasty little...🤬 not to have cast a curse on it, or simply botched the work?

[Geoff R Evil]

Indeed, it was a mostali that traded the item. Although the Issaries in the party negotiated the trade the Humakti was in the room, so he trusted the mostali to trade fairly a mostali made item for a mostali discovered item. Lotta mostali going on that requires trust.

Humakt is not a merciful god, and this Humakt got a blessing on his sword for double damage for payment of the geas. It feels to me the geas has been broken, but not enough to make the Humakt pc apostate.

[French Desperate WindChild]

3 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

So the big question - has the geas been broken?  If so do all the Humakti's sword now shatter in his hands?

if I were Humakt-GM I would say my initiate did not break his geas.

As PC's consciousness-GM I would however ask the player if the pc really trusts the issaries. After all ... the trader may have conspired with the dwarf and dwarves must be mistrusted ? (you even could ask an opposition roll between the geas-devotion humakt and the trader -loyalty group or anything)

If it is clear that's the bargain was to the detriment of our humakti, the point is not with the god... but with the trader 😛 (ok that may be not fun to create such ambiance)

so, imo, it is not important for the god, but it may be important for the character.

 

Edited September 10 by French Desperate WindChild

[soltakss]

On 9/10/2024 at 10:27 AM, Geoff R Evil said:

So the big question - has the geas been broken?

No, the Humakti did not trade with the Dwarf, in fact he was in the room and wasn't involved in the trade, presumably because he didn't trust him.

On 9/10/2024 at 10:27 AM, Geoff R Evil said:

If so do all the Humakti's sword now shatter in his hands?

I would not invoke the Spirit of Retribution for a failed Geas. Instead, I'd say that the Humakti loses the Gift that the Geas is related to and must atone for the breaking of the Geas, probably doing a ritual task, maybe a ritual, maybe fighting something dangerous. When the Humakti gets the Gift back then another Geas would be added for good measure.

I only have sword shattered if the Humakti is kicked out of the cult dishonourably. But, as anyone who knows me would know, I am a notoriously generous and fair GM.